Free Republic

Last month, a briefly worded press release went nearly unnoticed. It simply read: "Effective January 27, 2006, Western Union will discontinue all Telegram and Commercial Messaging Services. We regret any inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you for your loyal patronage." After 155 years, and millions of telegrams and Telex messages, a major part of American history quietly slipped into obscurity. For more than 100 years, Socorro was part of that history. With today's telephones, cell phones and e-mail, we can contact almost anyone we wish immediately and cheaply. This wasn't always the case. In Socorro's early days,...

A century-old hobby filled with dots and dashes is embroiled in a debate about its future and what level of training should be expected of those called on to help during local and national emergencies. Morse code, a slowly dying language, has become radio's equivalent of Latin: historically important, but increasingly irrelevant in a world of cell phones, computers and instant messaging. With mariners and the military having moved to other technologies long ago, ham radio operators are virtually the sole practitioners of a technique that made national and international communication possible with the telegraph.

Software Insecurity Outsourcing and defense fear of "foreign influence" By Daniel G. Dupont In February 2005 a group of Pentagon industry advisers warned that the "migration of critical microelectronics manufacturing" from the U.S. to other countries compromised national security. To ensure a steady supply of safe microchips, the Defense Science Board--which advises senior defense officials--recommended establishing "trusted foundries" to make critical hardware. But that is only part of the picture. According to the science board, any effort to improve the safety and supply of microchips would be of "limited utility" without a comparable focus on software--especially on what the Pentagon...

An amateur cryptologist's internet project is using idling computers to help crack three Nazi codes that eluded the Enigma codebreakers of the Second World War. Launched in January, the project has already broken one of the three messages, from a U-Boat commander forced to dive during an attack on November 25, 1942. The computers of 2,500 strangers are now whirring away, trying to decode the remaining two. You can volunteer your computer here.Stefan Krah, a German-born cryptologist from Utrecht, in the Netherlands, started the network in January after writing a programme that combined the brute force of connected computers with...

LONDON (Reuters) - Author Dan Brown did not copy material from an earlier book when he wrote "The Da Vinci Code", his best-selling religious thriller at the center of a copyright case, a lawyer told London's High Court on Tuesday. With over 36 million copies of his novel in circulation and a major Hollywood adaptation due for release in May, the stakes are high in a case brought against Brown's British publishers by historians Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. In opening arguments for the defense, publisher Random House said that much of the "central theme" of "The Holy Blood, and...

The M4 Project began in early January, as an attempt to break three original Enigma messages that were intercepted in 1942 and are thought never to have been broken by the Allied forces. These messages were encrypted using a four-rotor Enigma. That version was considered by Germany to be completely unbreakable, as it could be set up in any one of a vast number of ways (2 times 10 to the 145th power), each of which would encrypt a plain text message differently.

Dems Ready Proposal on Code of Conduct By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent Sat Jan 14, 8:23 PM ET Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., emerges from the French Cafe' restaurant in Omaha's Old Market, following a news conference in Omaha, Neb., Thursday, Jan. 12, 2006. Reid called for more ethics in Washington during a visit to Omaha, part of a tour that took him to rural, Republican-voting states this week. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik) WASHINGTON - Democrats intend to unveil a sweeping plan this week to tighten Congress' code of conduct, officials said Saturday night, including a ban on lobbyists'...

Dan Brown’s novel, The DaVinci Code, is now a movie starring Tom Hanks and directed by Ron Howard. According to Brown, Jesus married Mary Magdalene, a fallen woman, had a son who moved to Gaul and fathered Frenchmen. Voile! Mary Magdalene is the chalice which contained the blood(line) of Christ. Oi vey! Proof? DaVinci’s painting, The Last Supper, of course! (The John portrayed by Leonardo is not a John but a Mary! Holy switcheroo!) According to Brown, an international religious cabal known as Opus Dei works desperately to keep the facts about this chalice and child secret. (One can’t blame...

11/1/2005 - WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio (AFPN) -- With November being American Indian Heritage Month, I reminisce about a very special World War II veteran whose tour of duty played a very integral role in American military history. In February 2002, I had the distinct honor of meeting a Navajo Code Talker who was also the first Navajo Indian to receive a doctorate degree. I didn't just accidentally meet Dr. Samuel Billison. I looked him up on the Internet and invited him to come to my daughter's elementary school for our 6th Annual Cultural Diversity Assembly. That year was...

He became a legend in the Army, as well as in his native Comanche tribe in Oklahoma. Charles Chibitty, 84, the last of the Comanche “code talkers,” died July 20 this year in Tulsa, Okla. He also reportedly was the last hereditary chief of the Comanche, having descended from the great leader, Chief Ten Bears. “Code talkers” is the term used to describe Soldiers from various Indian tribes who communicated on radios, telephones and telegraph during World Wars I and II. They spoke in their own languages and dialects, many of which were not written down and all of which...

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- Indiana guard Stephen Jackson believes the NBA's new ban on bling-bling is racially motivated, but says he will abide by the rules. The NBA has announced that a dress code will go into effect at the start of the season. Players will be required to wear business-casual attire when involved in team or league business. They can't wear visible chains, pendants or medallions over their clothes. Jackson, who is black, said the NBA's new rule about jewelry targets young black males because chains are associated with hip-hop culture, and he said the league is afraid of becoming...

Charles Darwin, the 19th century geologist who wrote the treatise 'The Origin of Species, by means of Natural Selection' defined evolution as "descent with modification". Darwin hypothesized that all forms of life descended from a common ancestor, branching out over time into various unique life forms, due primarily to a process called natural selection. However, the fossil record shows that all of the major animal groups (phyla) appeared fully formed about 540 million years ago, and virtually no transitional life forms have been discovered which suggest that they evolved from earlier forms. This sudden eruption of multiple, complex organisms is...

Friends of ours moved into a home recently. To my surprise, when I went to a bathroom, I found that the sink had NO overflow protection. Wouldn't you know it, a few days later, I learned that someone had stopped the sink but left the faucet running. The overflow caused damage to the ceiling below the bathroom. I called Home Depot and they said the only sinks they sell are ones WITH overflow protection. Are there any code requirements regarding overflow protection for bathroom sinks? Thanks.

Online marketplaces like RAC (www.rentacoder.com) offer enough reason to generate effusive prose. It's the kind of place where 110,000 software programmers from across the world log on to earn a living. Of these, roughly 50,000 are Indians --all the way from Srinagar to Bhatinda, and Surat to Nagercoil. Put the 70-80 marketplaces like RAC together and a picture emerges of approximately one lakh Indian software programmers who generate about a billion dollars every year. At sites like RAC, mostly small and a few mid-sized American companies hoping to outsource their IT requirements post details of jobs that need to be...

"When he walks on to a movie set, he usually gets star treatment. But as Tom Hanks arrived at Lincoln Cathedral yesterday, he found himself somewhat upstaged. A handful of protesters were making their feelings known about the decision to film scenes from The Da Vinci Code in the historic building. Led by a Catholic nun, Sister Mary Michael, they claimed the movie, based on the bestselling novel by Dan Brown, should be filmed elsewhere. She led a 12-hour prayer vigil to push the message home."

NEW YORK (AP) - A team of scientists from 10 countries has deciphered the genetic code of rice, an advance that should speed improvements in a crop that feeds more than half the world's population. It's the first crop plant to have its genome sequenced, which means scientists identified virtually all the 389 million chemical building blocks of its DNA. Certain sequences of these building blocks form genes, like letters spelling words. The advance will help breeders produce new rice varieties with traits such as higher yield, improved nutritional content and better resistance to disease and pests, said one of...

A panel of 36 distinguished public policy experts and scholars—ranging from Nobel laureate Milton Friedman to Eagle Forum President Phyllis Schlafly to former House Majority Leader Dick Armey—has selected the Internal Revenue Code as the No. 1 item on this year’s Human Events list of the Ten Most Harmful Government Programs. The programs elected by our judges don’t just cost money, they also attack our values and corrode the spirit of liberty that makes America the greatest nation. As in previous years, we initially asked our judges to nominate programs for the list. The judges were then sent ballots listing...

Code Pink is stuck in a quagmire and sinking fast as evidenced by, among other things, FReepers outnumbering them 2 to 1 most of the evening of Friday night, July 15.  The enormity of what is happening must be appreciated.  Code Pinkos are holding a weekly anti-war protest at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the liberal bastion of Washington, DC, a city filled with left wing activists. Yet, the Pinkos have been outnumbered for seven weeks in a row, aside from about ten minutes 4 or 5 weeks ago when they briefly held the numerical edge. Considering conservatives' traditional...

On the heels of an historic rout of the Code Pinkos on July 1, FReepers  continued to frustrate the hate-filled Pinkos and their evil scheme as police ordered a stunned and distraught DC Chief Pinko, Gael Murphy, back to her side.  FReepers of the DC Chapter and FReepers from elsewhere achieved the decisive victory on Friday night, July 8. This was the 13th FReep of the unlucky Code Pinkos as FReepers hinder the Pinkos' evil scheme: to fake friendship with soldiers in hopes of finding one or more who, vulnerable in their wounded state, can be manipulated into joining the...

On Friday night, June 24, DC Chapter FReepers and friends had a fabulous fun FReep of Code Pinkos in complete disarray outside a gate of Walter Reed Army Medical Center. It was great to have several additional local FReepers join us for the first time in this 12th FReep in the Walter Reed series in just over thirteen weeks. With at least one out-of-town FReeper braving heavy holiday traffic, we had an awesome turnout for a holiday weekend.   As we have done on a number of these FReeps, we ate pizza on site before the FReep was under way. The...